


Stone

by linkwrites



Series: Stone [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, M/M, Major Character Injury, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, hux is bitter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-19 00:05:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17591003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linkwrites/pseuds/linkwrites
Summary: Ren is absent too often. Hux finds out why.





	Stone

The mission went south, as they so often do, and Hux was tired. With the distraction the Resistance had stirred up the Supreme Leader had been more overbearing than normal, which Hux had not known was possible before. Lately, missions had been failures more often than they’d been successful. Hux could come up with a million reasons why if and when the Supreme Leader asked why things were going so poorly but it all basically boiled down to one thing: Ren was distracted. 

Ren had not had a single tantrum, had kept his temper and acted as a fine leader to the Knights, as far as Hux had heard, but that in and of itself was concerning considering, well, how different this Ren was. Hux had asked, once, and all he got in reply was a gruff “nothing’s wrong” and a cold shoulder for the rest of the shift. It was annoying and frustrating and exactly what Ren wanted. Hux was smart enough to realize he had done exactly this not to push Hux away, but rather to make Hux want to leave him alone. So, naturally, Hux pushed back. It was one of the most miserable shifts he’d had in his life, but as expected Ren didn’t have the energy to keep it up. By the end of the shift Hux had caught Ren’s hands shaking more than once and he was late responding to simple questions. 

It was getting too far. Too many missions going wrong and Ren becoming more and more absent. At first Ren could believably explain an absence away as being needed by the Supreme Leader for some matter or another and that was the end of it, but recently he’d been absent for a part of everyday, and it was affecting the station’s work. 

Hux had received a request from Ren minutes after the failed mission to report to his quarters and update him on the mission playout. Hux was furious he hadn’t been there in the first place, but knowing he and Ren would have to brief the captains tomorrow morning on what exactly went wrong he figured it would be smart for Ren to at least know what the mission had even been about. As soon as he could leave the deck he was headed straight to Ren’s door. The taller man had been more of a recluse than he was before and Hux wouldn’t be surprised if he just asked him for his mission reports and sent him away.

Hux was no more than five paces from Ren’s door when it opened for him. He didn’t break stride, surprised as he was. Ren typically made him knock and wait, just to piss him off. When he entered he was surprised to find Ren was unmasked. He had popped his head around the corner of his bedroom doorway, black hair curly at the ends and wet from his refresher, just long enough to tell Hux to sit and that he was welcome to a drink if he wanted. Hux sat, poured two glasses of some of the red bourbon Ren had picked up on Naboo a few rotations ago. He was surprised when Ren emerged to meet him, wearing only a light undershirt and baggy sleep pants. Hux hadn’t seen Ren so undressed since he had taken him back to the ship after the failure of Starkiller, and to see him willingly unmasked like this was a shock, though Hux didn’t show it. 

“So, the mission,” Ren sighed. He sat in the armchair to the right of where Hux had settled on a small loveseat. Hux took a breath and a drink. “How bad was it?”

“Bad. Though you should know your knights performed well, even in your absence,” Hux began. Ren winced at the mention of his Knights but made no motion to interrupt. “We used the Nafirin approach this time, as it was working well in simulation. No such luck in the real thing. Half the left reach were gone in minutes. There was no coming back.” Hux was bitter, and he had every right to be. Ren winced again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Hux nearly choked on his drink. “I mean it. Everything’s been so. Loud. Since Starkiller and that girl I just-” Ren cut himself off. Hux felt him comb through his surface thoughts almost defensively. It was endearing to Hux, as much as it bothered him, the way Ren always wanted to know what he was thinking, how he felt. 

“Get out of my head, Ren,” he said quietly, and Ren listened. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for Starkiller-”

“She beat me, Hux. She’s untrained, knew of the Force for, what, a day? I’m the Master of the Knights of Ren and I couldn’t even deal with one untrained scavenger.” Ren winced again, and this time Hux noticed.

“Ren are you hurt?” He set his drink down and leaned towards Ren’s half-retreating form. “That’s the third time you’ve done that since I’ve been here.”

“Done what?”

“Winced. What’s going on, Ren? You’ve been out everyday for a dozen rotations.” To his own surprise he softened his voice, settling a hand on Ren’s bouncing knee in a way that felt instinctively comforting, though when he’d become so apparently competent at comforting Kylo Ren he had no idea. Ren’s knee stopped bouncing, but the rest of him went still in the same second, like he’d frozen solid in the span of a second. “Ren?”

There was a heartbeat’s pause where nothing happened, followed by a slow, full breath from the tall man. He cleared his throat quietly, almost anxiously, and winced again. “Sorry, I...sorry,” he mumbled. Hux sighed, trying to focus long enough to figure out what to do. He could only think of holding him, getting him less vulnerable but more open, just long enough for him to be honest. 

“Is this a Force thing?” Hux asked. Ren winced, this time for the question, and nodded slowly. “You know I don’t understand and I won’t try to, but you can’t bottle it up. That’ll just destroy you.” 

Ren swallowed. “That’s it, though. I tried.” Hux’s heart sank into his stomach.

“What do you mean, you tried?” he asked, but Ren sunk further into his seat. “Kylo?”

“The Force is…” he began, then sighed and started over. “Once you start training with it you can’t really stop. You can’t quiet it, not unless you’re strong, and after Starkiller, I...well, I was not strong, not for some time. Sitting still like that is just. It doesn’t really work. After my time in the medbay I’ve had trouble slowing it down, keeping it...comfortable. It’s torturous. I woke up this morning to a flood of what felt like the entire fucking universe trying to force its way into my head and I couldn’t stand it anymore so I just-” Ren sighs, short, through his nose, and to Hux it feels steadying, like whatever he was about to say was so big or so important that he had to hold his breath. “There’s this...thing. Force users who don’t want to  _ be _ anymore can do to...end it. I’m not sure how to explain. It’s like a feeling, a vision of just being taken. Being nothing. Apparently it turns the user to dust or smoke or something equally as gray and meaningless. And I…”

“You’re not telling me you tried this?” Hux leaned closer, and in the back of his mind he considered how he got here, how he was able to speak to the man before him with concern and not contempt, something he’s never really done before, as close as they were. The feeling in his chest blooms familiar, something he’d pushed down a million times but never examined until now, in the face of his concern. 

“Hux,” Ren almost whispered his name, and Hux’s stomach jumped back into his throat. He’d known anxiety, fear, but nothing felt like this. Mourning. Ren leaned his face into his hands, hiding. The tips of his fingers on his right hand were like stone, gray and cracked and dead-looking. Hux reached out without thinking, taking the hand between his. “I...started to. And then I stopped. I don’t know what it was, I just had this feeling that I couldn’t go. Like I still have something to do.”

Hux examined the stone fingers. The gray reached further on the inside of his hand, tipping the top of his palm. “Are you..does it hurt?”

Ren nodded. “Yes. My side hurts more, though.” Ren winced again when he leaned back. Hux’s eyes flicked down to where he knew the saber wound in Ren’s side was. He stood, still holding Ren’s hand. 

“Come on.”

“Where?” 

“Just come on.” Hux pulled, hard but gentle enough to avoid being rough on his fingers. Ren was surprisingly pliant, standing with a restrained wince and letting Hux lead him to his own bedroom by the hand. He gestured for Ren to sit on the bed while he did something in the refresher. 

“What are you doing?”

“Washing my hands. Take your shirt off.” Hux emerged from the bathroom with a towel over his wet hands and his uniform shirt rolled up to his elbows. Ren gave him a look that screamed discomfort, and Hux understood. The warmth in his chest grew. “Kylo.”

Ren looked away, but he pulled the thin shirt off, smothering the wince this time. Hux grew curious. “I’ve never seen you express pain, before,” he said as he got Ren to lay flat with his head and upper torso elevated on the pillows. He folded the towel and set it to the side. 

“Only because it’s you,” Ren muttered. Hux glanced up at him, surprised. He moved to sit cross-legged on the bed beside him. He had yet to look at the wound, wanting to give himself time to school his expression. “It’s pointless for me to hide things from you, Hux. You always figure me out. No one else would see this, see me.” Hux stopped himself from hiding his blush behind a hand. He looked at Ren, then away. 

“Yeah, well,” he mumbled, “You’re always in my head, aren’t you?” Hux didn’t look back at Ren, knowing the blush crossing his face and tipping his ears was making a point he couldn’t deny. Ren reached over, laid a hand on his knee. Hux held it. Something in his chest made itself known in that heady, warm way that made him want to run. 

“I like being in your head.” Ren’s low voice turned Hux’s insides to something comparable to the service rations given out for long fights. He laughed, breathy and light. 

“I know, Kylo.” 

Ren pulled his hand away. “If you’re gonna look, just do it. It’s not getting any better.” Hux blinked to clear his head, pulled himself up to his knees and sat back on his heels. He felt Ren reach out and run his hand from his shoulder down his back to his hips as he steeled himself. 

The wound in Ren’s side had looked horrible when he first got it, but that was nothing compared to the dark gray stone emanating from it now. The wound sat just under his ribs on the right side and ran along his abdomen, just barely crossing the side of his muscled stomach. Along the line of the wound was the darkest, the stone lightening as the wound spread outwards. It cracked consistently across the face, where Ren had clearly disturbed it by moving, but it looked near-solid. Hux sucked a breath in through his teeth. It was shaky, unsteady even with Hux’s blank expression. 

“Kylo,” he whispered, barely audible but he knew Ren heard. He felt that insistent presence in his head again. “You don’t have to do that. Just ask.” The hand on Hux’s hip squeezed and the presence left. Ren sat up, slowly, and Hux watched the skin around the stone as it was pulled by the stone’s rigidity. 

“How bad is it?”

“I don’t know. It looks like it hurts. But I don’t know.” Hux was surprised to find he had tears in his eyes. He blinked them back insistently, but he knew that Ren saw. He ran his hand over Ren’s stomach, avoiding the wound at first, then edging around it gently with just a fingertip. He heard Ren wince, lighter this time, but he took his hand back anyway. He felt Ren’s eyes on him. “Will you go get it looked at?” he asked without much hope, knowing Ren as he did. “For me?”

Ren pouted, wound an arm around Hux and slowly pulled him close. Hux leaned into Ren against the pillows, letting himself settle into the arm around his waist. Ren pressed his forehead to Hux’s temple and sighed, and Hux knew he was thinking, deciding. Hux felt his heart fall into the warmth he’d had in his chest for nearly as long as he’d known Ren. The taller man kissed his temple.

“For you, Hux? The universe.”


End file.
